


The Lies Our Bodies Are Told

by germanjj



Category: Call Me By Your Name (2017) RPF
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Falling In Love, Filming, First Kiss, First Time, Fluff, Implied/Referenced Cheating, M/M, Realizations, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-27
Updated: 2021-01-05
Packaged: 2021-01-06 22:09:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 14,280
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21203741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/germanjj/pseuds/germanjj
Summary: "And yet sometimes when you act, your mind knows you're acting, but your body doesn't." (Timothée Chalamet)





	1. Dancing Souls

**Author's Note:**

> Based on public personas, not the real people. All made up. Don't like don't read.
> 
> Unbeta'd, English is not my first language

**Part I**

“Rolling,” comes the soft voice from my right, almost inaudible, matching the atmosphere we are in, cozy and delicate and secluded. I sink into Oliver, sink into his skin and his mind and it’s easy to follow him as I reach out to Timmy, Elio, and flip both of us around so he’s above me, the dim light letting his skin look like porcelain and the Star of David is glistening where it’s resting against the hollow of his throat. 

He’s beautiful. Fragile and daring, his body all bones and sharp angles and soft skin. I don’t know if it’s Oliver or Armie admiring the boy in front of me, but I admire him all the same, the word breathtaking dancing in the back of my mind. 

The night is almost over, takes upon takes spent kissing and touching and holding one another, our bodies entangled in the sheets, and I’ve long lost all sense of modesty or shame, given my own body over to Oliver’s desires, strong but so careful, so frightened, as if one wrong move could break something very dear, and once broken, would never be able to be recovered. 

Timmy lets his lips travel down my neck, tongue licking my shoulder, then my collarbone. He moves against my body, shimmies down as I pull both of us further up on the bed so I’m taking up most of it and Timmy is on top of me. 

A thought crosses my mind how odd it is still, to have other people watching me doing this. Watch me be so intimate with another person. But it is fleeting and vague as if I feel obligated to think about the awkwardness and shame, but don’t actually feel it, and so the thought barely registers before it’s gone. And then I have trouble thinking anything as my body reacts on its own accord when Timmy gently bites down my nipple. 

He looks up as I moan softly, soft enough the camera might not even pick it up, and what is the moan for then if not for the movie. His eyes are wide and dark and I want to praise him for his talent, how desire shows so naturally on his face, shared so freely, but I don’t dare to go there, fearing to acknowledge that I can’t truly tell how much of it is acting and how much his body, just like mine, simply believes the lie we are telling it. 

I pull him back up to me, his face to mine so I can kiss him once more, long languid kisses, our tongues dancing in an ancient rhythm as if that’s all they’ve been made for. 

We’ve long ditched the Hollywood rule of no tongues. Together with our clothes and two failed takes trying to cover ourselves while giving the illusion of being completely naked, it all was tossed out in favor of authenticity and practicality hours ago. 

We’re both aroused by now. I doubt the crew notices anything and if they do, care enough to spare any attention to it, but with Timmy on top of me, it is hard to miss. Mimicking the act of sex as much as it can be mimicking while being naked together.

I bury a hand in Timmy’s hair and try to recall the simple choreography we had mapped at the beginning of the shoot.

Sitting next to each other. Timmy on my lap. Timmy on the bed, me on top. Then flipping us around, Timmy kissing down my chest, me pulling him back up. More kissing. 

I try to remember what I’m supposed to do next, but I can’t grasp a solid thought with Timmy having set on a devastating rhythm, with his hips, and with his tongue, and the line between acting and reality has never felt so frail. I fight to come out of the haze of desire my body wants to give into as Timmy breaks the kiss with a gasp, his eyes wide and panicked, chanting “Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck,” until he throws his head back, his eyes closed, and a shudder rips through his body. 

As if doused with ice water, I’m pulled back into the present moment, into the staged bed I’m lying on, the set surrounding us, the lights and microphone and camera pointed towards us and four people monitoring our every move. 

I reach for Timmy and, pressing his head against my shoulder, I pull the sheet over both our bodies and turn him, so my back is towards the room and Timmy’s face and his body are shielded from the lens and the eyes behind us. 

I hear Luca whisper, telling everyone to leave the room and then there’s shuffling as they swiftly follow his request, but my focus is solely on Timmy, now half-buried under me, trembling with the aftershocks of his orgasm. 

My mouth is dry, my heart thrumming in my chest, my mind a whirlwind of thousand thoughts and thousand emotions, and I can’t focus on any of them, a surge of protectiveness splitting through me and all I can think is how he, like this, is not for anyone else to see. How I have witnessed something so private and precious, that I want to give that gift back, want to un-see it, having not been invited to see it in the first place. 

Guilt follows right along, scalding in my veins. I should have realized it, I should have noticed and stopped it, should have asked for a break. 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” come his muffled words against my shoulder and I pull him tighter, willing the horror out of his voice. 

“It’s okay,” I whisper, one hand lightly rubbing over his rips. He feels smaller in my arms, and different, his body suddenly foreign to me as if kissing and licking and touching it had been Oliver learning Elio’s body, with enthusiasm and permission. 

But Timmy coming had pushed Oliver and Elio out of the room and left only us, Armie and Timothée, unfamiliar with each other.

I ease up on him, rolling off to give him some space, but reluctant to let go completely, so I keep my hand on his head, continuing a slow and steady caress, playing with the curls of his hair. He tenses as I move, reaching out to stop me. 

“Everyone left,” I assure him. “It’s just us.” And then, like an afterthought that tastes somehow bitter in my mouth, I add, “Should I leave too?”

He shakes his head and I can feel him exhale against the skin of my neck. “I’m so sorry,” he says again, not sounding any better than he had the first time. 

“Nothing to be sorry for. It’s okay, I promise.”

There’s movement I notice just out of the corner of my eye and I spot Luca in the doorway, concern clear on his face. I use my free hand to motion him to give us more time and he nods and steps away. 

Timmy’s heart is still beating rapidly against my side and I doubt he even noticed anything outside of the two of us. 

Silence sets between us, only our breathing is heard in the room. I don’t know what to say, don’t know how to make him feel better about what happened when my own feelings start to sneak up, and fear starts spreading up my neck.

This changes things. Not what happened, not the act of it, but what it feels like now to have him in my arms. What the memory of him on top of me, head thrown back, does to my pounding heart. We’re still entangled, half lying on top of each other, my hand in his hair, and his nose pressed below my ear. I’m still holding him while the evidence of what had happened is cooling on both our bodies. 

“I’m so sorry, “ he repeats a fourth time like it’s becoming his mantra. 

“Man, you don’t have to be.” I switch gears. “It’s just your body recognizing an amazing and passionate lover. Your body doesn’t know this is just pretend.” 

I put a smile in my voice, mocking him lightly, and it seems that I manage to get the desired effect when Timmy chuckles next to me, as if he doesn’t want to, as if he’s still intent on basking in shame but can’t help his body’s desire to laugh at my teasing like he couldn’t resist his body’s desire to…

“I hate you,” he whispers.

“No, you don’t.”

“No, I don’t.”

And then he moves reluctantly as if leaving the safety of my body is the equivalent of him getting back up, on his own two feet, after he had fallen and had to be propped up to stand. 

“Hey,” I smile when he finally looks up at me. He’s flushed still, cheeks rosy, a sheen on his eyes, and his lips full and deep red. I chide myself for noticing it, for the swell of lust and longing that surges through me, and I push all of it down.

“We’re okay,” I tell him and feel my heart tug as he smiles sheepishly, his lashes fanning his face as he looks down. It’s true and it’s not. Something is lurking in the shadows, something just out of reach, but I can feel it coming closer and creeping its way to the surface, and I don’t know if I’m ready for what it will teach me about myself. 

I shake him gently again, make him look up, and then I hear myself say “I love you” before I can think further about it. I meant to say it as something like ‘We’re okay’, the same meaning but different words. But suddenly it’s all I can think about. One truth filling up my entire body. 

Once the words are out of my mouth, I feel them course through me, burning everything in its wake, and I feel like a new man having said them, to have had cause to say them even though I was tricked into speaking by my mind, knowing my heart better than I do. 

I love him, love Timothée. Without a tinge to it, without a label or a restriction. 

Happiness rushes through me, a tingling sensation in my heart and my fingertips, a flutter in my chest. I remember having felt like this only a handful of times before. With my wife, maybe. With my children, certainly. The joy of pure love before the inevitable _‘What do we do with this? What do I do with my love for you?’_ For now, I feel like I can breathe far better and far deeper than I have in a long time. 

There are a myriad of emotions playing over Timmy’s face, none of which I can decipher or hold on to. 

Dread grips my throat. Have I said too much? Have I overstepped? Have I used his vulnerability for my own agenda, even if it was hidden from me too and had just revealed itself?

But then I see him relax, his whole body settling in my arms, and joy spreads across his features. It’s love and affection I see and trust. 

He moves quickly, presses a soft kiss to my lips, as if to say ‘thank you’ or ‘I love you’ or as if to, having come as Timothée, steal at least one kiss as Timothée, like in reverse order, before we are inevitably going back to who we are and that part is something only Elio can have. 

He flops down again, putting his head back on my shoulder, but not to hide. 

The world outside seems so far away like nothing exists except this bed and the two of us.

“Thank you,” he says. 

“For what?”

“For being you.” He makes it sound like a question, like he doesn’t know or can’t put into words what he’s thanking me for. “For being Oliver.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Confession: when I read somewhere that there's tons more footage of the movie Luca is not willing to share because he deemed it too personal, this was the first thought that came to my mind. So I had to write it to get it out.


	2. Braver In The Shadows

The low light casts shadows on Timmy's face that make him look older, sharper. I study that face as if it's new to me, one more face of the man in front of me I don't yet know inside and out, and I find myself rubbing my chest, the idea of not knowing something about him, somehow hurting something inside me. 

The crew chats about something or other behind the camera, a technical problem that makes us wait for ten minutes now. Still, they're just far enough away that we can't hear what they're saying or see them past odd shadows in the pale moonlight, making it seem as if we're alone. Me, leaning against the column, and him, sitting across from me on the stone wall that smells of age and moss and has now heated up where our legs rest against it. He's leaning into me when he speaks, his hands on my thighs all but forgotten, as if his hand on my thighs are part of my body, one and the same, and he's sunk deeply into his character, far enough his fingers would slip under my shorts without him seeming to notice. 

I notice. The palms on my knees and the fingers under the hem of my shirt unsettle me just as his half-hidden face unsettles me. 

I think about what happened the other night. Like a wound I know I should leave alone but can't stop picking at, I summon the memory of his face, blushed and thrown back in reluctant ecstasy, and I feel my heart flutter at that memory, welcoming it despite knowing better.

And like with a favorite movie you never sit the whole way through anymore but would fast forward to your favorite part you could speak every word already, I pull up the memory of his body against mine, not during it, but after, when I had hidden him with my own body, shielded from the rest of the world, not to let them witness him in such state. Exposed. Beautiful. Precious.

I replay the moment I had told him I loved him. The moment he had kissed me. 

"Armie," Timmy laughs, pulling me away from those thoughts. 

"What?"

"Where were you just now?" His voice is so low it adds to the feeling of being secluded while we wait, and I ask myself how often he thinks about that night. 

Is he still embarrassed by it? Does he think of it with shame? Or does he go back to the moment he came, on top of me, two naked men pressed together, writhing and half out of mind with lust that wasn't entirely our own and not entirely our character's. 

I want to ask, want to offer to talk about it, but know that offer would just be a front for what is really going on. That I needed to talk about it. That, despite my composure, it had thrown me completely off-kilter. That not a day goes by I don't think about it, heart thudding in my chest and heat pooling low in my belly. 

He chuckles lightly, leaning in to gently push against my chest. "You're doing it again."

"Sorry."

"Are you okay?" His face grows serious, and I want to reach out and soften the lines of worry between his eyes with my fingers. 

"We're almost done," I say, and it's not what's truly on my mind, but it's a close second. There's a part of me that wants this to be over so I can go back to a place where I know who I am, who I love and what I want. Here, in front of me, in the body of a person that is so much man and so much delicacy rolled up into one, is the very reason everything is off balance.

I want to tell him that too, want to be honest like he's been honest, like everything that's been happening here is honest, raw, the whole reason we're here, the one thing Luca has asked us to be. Find honesty in the words you're speaking, and the rest will follow suit. 

His worry lines deepen, and now it's definitely my fault. 

I reach out then, fingertips on his cheekbones, and he freezes on something he was about to say. His eyes change the way they look at me, and I'm almost convinced my head is making it all up, and the light is playing tricks on me, but then he leans into the touch just so, his eyes never breaking my gaze. 

He's waiting for me, for what I'll do next. 

My fingertips stay on his cheekbones, mapping out the curve of his cheek and then travel down to his jaw, sharp lines under the softest skin. Then they move up, grazing his temple and my fingers shake as they find his brows, his eyes falling shut for a moment until I reach the bridge of his nose and his eyes fly open once more, focused so clearly on me that I feel caught out but for more than just my touch, as if he can see right through me and see the jumbled thoughts in my head.

My fingers travel down to his lips, and when his mouth falls open without any hesitation or preamble, tied solely to the movement of my hand, I swallow heavily. My thumb, grazing his lower lip, trembles with nerves and excitement and with wonder that he's letting me do this even though I don't know what this is and what I want to accomplish by mapping out the angels of his face. If it's more than just making sure that I know every peak and valley and have not one expression they can form be foreign to me. 

My body is coiled in concentration. In sensation. My sole focus is on the connection of my fingertips and Timmy's skin and like two wires or two magnets brushing; something flickers where I touch him. Something shifts.

The moment breaks the second my thump touches the inside of his lip, where there's the wetness of his mouth, where I can see his tongue—lying in wait. So close, I'd almost touched it. 

Timmy takes a sharp breath and pulls back as if coming out of a haze, and that's when I wake up too, heat shooting up my cheeks that I'm grateful he can't see. 

"I'm - I'm sorry," I stammer like a teenager, mortified by what I had done. 

He clears his throat, wide eyes now looking away from me. 

"Tim." I reach out once more, but don't touch this time, having now lost that privilege, at least that's what it feels like when it sinks in.

He turns back towards me, face hidden mostly in the shadows, and a question flickers through my mind. Has he learned to turn away so others wouldn't be able to read him as he could not hide the feelings showing so plainly on his face?

What I can see now is careful curiosity, a question more than anything. No resentment. 

"I think I got - lost," I admit with a voice as uncertain as the look on his face.

"What does that mean?" No judgment in his voice, just an honest question.

"I don't know." 

Never before in my life have I felt this exposed, this raw, on the edge of a cliff so high I couldn't see where it started. My ever-present need to reach out and touch him rattles something loose inside me, my body trying to give me a signal my mind is not yet able to decipher and I realize that I don't know if reaching out would mean grabbing a lifeline to stop me from falling off that very cliff or if it would mean jumping into the unknown. 

The night ends not long after, and as soon as we're out of makeup, we head back to our apartments, walking most of the way, just the two of us, quietly strolling through the night. 

The silence is charged, but not with a tension between us, but with the thoughts in my head that rush so loudly through the memory of this day that I almost suspect Timmy can hear them and must be shocked at where my mind goes, over and over again. 

I want to kiss him. I want to touch him. 

And even though I had spent all day and all night doing just that, I'm not closer to answer the question in my head than I was yesterday, because it wasn't me who kissed Timothée and it wasn't Timothée who I kissed. 

Several times a day, I would convince myself that Oliver's desire was bleeding through and that my body is so used to the longing for him that it doesn't know the difference between truth and pretend. I would convince myself of this until I remember the pale, strong, and delicate line of his neck, thrown back, like an offering to me, and that hadn't been Elio. That had been all Timmy. And the desire to see that again, to make him look like that again, is all me. 

"Goodnight, then," Timmy says when we reach the street where we have to part ways for the last few steps. He doesn't meet my eyes when he says it, and I realize that my silence must have made it worse. 

"Are we- okay?" I linger, my body turned towards him, dread rising in my throat. 

He does meet my eyes then but doesn't answer right away, and my chest goes cold.

"I fucked up, didn't I? Fuck, Timmy, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable, I-."

He twists his mouth like he does when he has something to say but doesn't know the words. 

"I let you," he speaks finally, furrowing his brows, tilting his head like the words are not for me but his own realization, his own question. "I let you."


	3. Like Magnets In Silence

Two days pass where nothing happens, yet everything changes. I change. I can feel it in the stretch of the skin over my bones, in the taste of my mouth, in the way the air in my lungs has more room now. 

I steal glances when he's not looking. I watch the other men in the crew, too, just to check if there's any sensation when I look at them. I feel silly and too old to restart this process, to be exploring myself, my desires, my reaction to exposed skin and sharp cheekbones. 

It doesn't tell me anything, those glances. I'm not suddenly overcome with lust when our camera operator, solidly built and objectively handsome, brushes past me with his bare arms. And, just so my mind can throw me for a loop, thinking of a nameless, faceless naked male body doesn't sound much less appealing than a female one. But then, every man certainly sometimes appreciates what is essentially just another beautiful human. 

But then Timmy would laugh, carefree, his mouth wide open and eyes crinkling, and something would squeeze my lungs and rob me of all the air inside them. 

Wrapped up in Oliver's head and his clear but guarded desires, I find myself instead in Elio's heart, curious, driven to find the answer to a question my body and heart are posing but that I feel I will never be able to answer without him. Without being with him. 

We don't talk about the incident of the other night, but I notice him looking when he thinks I'm not aware. And so we spend the days in each other's arms, kissing and caressing when, as soon as someone yells 'cut', we stop, shocking our bodies with the sudden distance that feels unnecessary and even cruel, our bodies not understanding they aren't allowed to touch when the camera stops. 

Which is why, when, one evening after the filming is done and dinner has been eaten, we sit together on the sofa of his little apartment, going through the pages for the next day, we gradually seem to get closer by the hour. As if our bodies, craving the closeness they've been promised, try to trick us, sneaking in those moments that would bring us closer with no haste and no flashy signals. 

So when Timmy stretches out, head on the armrest and sheets of paper on his chest, and throws his legs over my lap with a smirk, my first thought is to push him off, playfully, to get some distance between us. But, overruled by my own body, I don't move.

"Don't do that," comes his soft voice, his bare foot nudging my chest. 

"Do what?"

"You make that face again. Like you're thinking about something you don't want me to see."

"I do?" I ask, more surprised that he had found me out, and I feel my cheeks heating up. 

"Why are you?" he adds quietly. 

"I don't know."

He nudges me again; this time, his toe bumps against my chin, and I wrap both my hands around his foot, pulling it off my face.

"Don't lie," he chuckles. 

Neither one of us is pulling away, and something shifts in the air that scares me, so to counteract that fear and give my hands something to do, I start massaging his foot. 

When I look over and see his face, it's apparent that he's waiting for an explanation that I'm not sure how to give.

I take my time, and just like we had done in a scene a few days ago, I knead his foot, stretch every toe one by one, and press my knuckles to the underside with enough pressure that it makes him hiss but not pull back. His brows furrow in another question, but I simply smile and go back to my task. I resist the urge to kiss his foot, just as I had done then, but barely. 

At some point, I hear his breathing shift and out of the corner of my eye see him play with the hem of his shirt, the pages on his chest slipping and about to fall to the ground. 

Then he clears his throat. "Armie, eh- you should probably stop."

I look at him, taking in his flushed face and nervous smile, and then I let my eyes wander lower. Timmy's wearing loose shorts that reach just above his knees and his shirt has ridden up enough I can see a sliver of his skin above his waistband. 

And the outline of his cock in his shorts.

He's growing hard.

He meets my eyes but doesn't move as if to say 'You've seen me and what you're doing to me. The ball is in your court now'. 

I swallow, my throat long dry, my body fixated on the moment, sensing his presence so deeply as if he was fire and his heat burning my skin.

I let go of his leg, and Timmy relaxes slightly until I reach for his other leg, pulling that foot towards me. 

His sharp intake of breath thunders through the room, quieting everything else as if announcing something important was coming. 

I start the same massage I had done on his other foot, my hands sure and steady where my mind is not. I glance over from time to time; his eyes never waver from my face, and I realize he had slipped into the same state he had the other night when I'd caressed his face. Letting me lose myself. Waiting, curious, observing.

But his breathing gets heavier, his mouth falls open, and when I hit a particularly tender spot, his groan shakes every cell in my body that had been waiting in tension. 

I work towards his ankle and then massage the muscles of his calve, and feel like I'm dancing on the edge of my cliff. 

I can't stop myself from looking at the growing bulge under the fabric of his shorts or his brutally honest and open face, unguarded arousal painted on his features like I have not seen before. Not even then, when he'd come on my crotch. He'd been guarded then. There's nothing between him and me now. 

The answer to my question comes into view. 

"This." I breathe the word more than I say it. "This is why."

"I don't understand." His voice his hoarse, sending another shiver down my spine, and I want to laugh at how stupid I had been, thinking anyone else could make me feel this way. Could incite the same reaction. It's him. 

"What I'm thinking about when I'm shutting you out. What I didn't want you to see." I can't believe I'm telling him this, that I'm blurting out my unfinished thoughts, but I feel the desire to meet his openness, his shiny eyes and hard cock, with some of my own honesty. 

"You're thinking about me like this?"

I make myself meet his eyes and nod. "Is that weird?"

"A little," is his reply, a hint of a smile on his face. "But I don't mind."

The words send a thrill through me. "Do you want me to stop?" I ask him, stilling my hands but not letting go. 

He hesitates, and I can see on his face how he's thinking about this, about my hands on his feet and where else they could go.

I don't know what answer I want from him. But I'm relieved that I've given him the decision, that I've put everything that I'm thinking about on the table. Thrown the ball back to him. 

He shakes his head, and I would swear his eyes turn darker. 

Now my hands tremble when I shift on the sofa, so I'm turned towards him, guiding his legs on either side of my hips. Under the frail disguise of a massage, I dare to put my hands back on his naked skin.

I go slow. I'm thorough. I massage first his left calve then his right. I use both hands and enough pressure that if we'd stop now, we could still claim it was just a massage.

But nothing in me wants this to stop.

I enjoy the fact that it's a man's leg I'm touching, that's it's his body under my hands. Not for a second do I think about anyone else but him. 

My hands reach over his knees, and my fingertips slide under his shorts, and Timmy whimpers, and my eyes fly up to find him biting his lip, eyes glued to me. 

I encircle his thighs with my hands and can't believe that I get to do this, that I get to touch him not just on set but also in here, when it's just us, just him. Another man under my fingertips, and how had I not known that I wanted this? More than just a drunk blowjob in a bar or an awkward fumble in a tent. But like this, with him looking at me, sober and honest, and no excuses between us. 

I can smell him now, the scent of a day lived, of lightly worn clothes and the shower after work and of what is the unique scent of his arousal.

I want to taste it. Want to press my face into it. 

One last look at his face, I hover over his crotch, hoping to telegraph precisely what I'm asking permission to do, having lost all my ability to speak. 

He nods, and I feel the edge of the cliff shake under my toes, before it all crumbles down, and I lean forward, push my face into his crotch, my body coming alive when I inhale his scent, and my nose presses against his cock and I groan, having found my answer, living my moment of 'yes, yes, this is what I want'.

Timmy rocks underneath me, his body curving towards mine, his moans loud and unabashed, and my hand finds one of his, and, without looking up, my face still nosing against his cock and the fabric keeping it from me, I interlace our fingers and hold on.

It's pure ecstasy. It's what I had imagined and more, the hunger spreading through my body like molten lava, burning everything in its wake. 

I press my nose against the fabric where underneath his cock is twitching, a groan building in my throat, vibrating through my body, as if his scent is sipping into every fiber of my being, rattling something loose. 

I let my tongue dart out, mouthing along his length, the fabric wet from my spit where my mouth sticks to it. 

"Fuck, fuck," Timmy chants, voice cracking at the edges, and he squeezes my hand where he's holding on for dear life, his other having found its way into my hair, long slender fingers restlessly cradling my head. 

I look up again, finding his eyes immediately, stopping in my tracks. I've never, not once, been looked at with this much hunger. 

I want more of this. More of him.

"Whatever you want," he whispers, voice thin and raspy and giving me a gift so precious my throat tightens. With a surge of confidence and the wish to be worthy of his trust, I let go of his hand and sit up a bit, enough to be able to pull his shorts and underwear down in one movement. His cock springs free, hard and welcoming.

I want to tell him how beautiful he is. The only thing dancing through my head. Beautiful. Every inch of him.

And all mine.

I shudder at the thought and then blush, feeling something twist in my stomach when I realize that I have no right to think that way. No right to claim him as mine, both because I am not free to claim anyone and because we haven't talked about this. And yet claiming him is all I want at this moment. 

"Armie," he whines, probably mistaking my stopping for hesitation. My name out of his mouth sends shivers down my spine. I'm way past stopping any of this. As long as he wants me to, I'm going to take everything I can get.

I watch my own hand take his cock and close a loose fist around it, his gasp going straight to my own cock, hard in my jeans just from the thought of touching him, touching a man like this, having him react to what I am doing. A deep-seated pull of desire from his cock, stirring up the same in mine. 

I tug at him a few times, loose and dry, watching his face while I do it and then see him twist into a beautiful moan as I let some spit dribble down on my fist, slicking up the way. The angle is exhilarating. Having a cock in my hand that isn't mine, is too, having Timmy squirming and gasping underneath me, moaning until he pushes a fist into his mouth to stifle himself, makes me feel dizzy, almost high. 

I jerk his cock in earnest. Finding a rhythm, my eyes fly between my hand and his face, torn, not wanting to miss a single thing.

His breathing gets louder, the most beautiful strangled constant noises coming out of his mouth, and I never want to stop, want to make him sound like this forever, thinking that I could live on this sound alone. 

"Armie," he breathes my name as he comes, a word among a list of obscenities he keeps gasping, his body shaking underneath mine, his face twisting as he's letting go and I can't take my eyes off him. This is nothing like the last time. No regret, no horror. His face, like his whole body, is just pure pleasure.

My hand is coated in his come. 

Without thinking, I raise it to my mouth, letting my tongue dart out to taste it.

"Fffuuck," Timmy groans, his eyes, hooded and dark, back on me. 

I lap up every bit of it, eyes locked with his, and it doesn't feel like the aftermath but like a next step to what we've done. It feels like claiming him as mine, and this time I don't stop the thought but savor it, like I savor the taste of him. 

I'm barely done when he pushes up and reaches for me, pulling me down to him and crashing our lips together, pushing a moan into my mouth, and where I had thought I'd found my answer, found the satisfying thrill of being with him, kissing him now, as Armie, kissing Timothée, I feel myself falling, realizing very late, that I'm not falling at all, but flying. 

I find myself under his hands, under his lips, and get lost in the sensation of my tongue in his mouth, his hands tugging my hair, and my hard cock in my jeans pushing against his naked crotch. Knowing and feeling his come spread from his body to mine, onto my jeans and my shirt, makes me gasp into the kiss, and my body shudders as he holds onto my ass and presses me down. 

I lose myself in him, in his mouth, in his neck, in his gasps, in the feeling of having him underneath me, welcoming me into his arms and everything about it feels right, feels exactly where I'm supposed to be. 

A cold, hard, icy grip reaches through the haze and slaps me awake. 

I break the kiss and pull off him, crawling backward on the sofa, and then I look at him, look at the state of him and the state of myself and panic rises in my throat. About how, not for a second, the thought of my wife had pierced my mind. How I had wanted to claim him, how I had felt right with him. How I had found my home and myself in his arms just seconds ago when I had a life and a home on the other side of the ocean, waiting for who I thought I was. 

My heart sinks at the realization that, more than anything in the world, I just want to crawl back into his arms.

Timmy doesn't speak. 

He doesn't move at all, just stares at me as if he can read my mind.

"I'm- sorry," I croak, unsure what I'm apologizing for, and then I get up to stand on wobbly legs and bring distance between him and me. 

"Are you freaking out?" he asks, voice very thin.

I nod shakily. "Yeah. I guess- I guess I am."

I don't tell him why, can't tell him why just yet. 

"I'm sorry," comes the smallest whisper. 

"No, wait, Timmy," I turn towards him, heart shattering in my chest as he looks up at me, pulling up his pants and covering himself with his shirt. "None of this is your fault. I fucked up, I fucked up big time."

"It's okay, I get it," he lies, and it hurts me how I'm hurting him now. How I'm disappointing him with my reaction, with my pulling away from him as if he'd been a mistake. I wish I could tell him how far off the mark he is, but my throat is closed, and words are dying on my tongue. 

"I'm sorry." I let my eyes linger a second longer, hoping to convey everything that I'm feeling, all the confusion, the love, the gratitude for showing me who I am, for walking that path with me, taking my hand and giving me my answer. 

"See you tomorrow?" he asks, eyes darting around, his tongue playing with his lip.

I understand it as the dismissal it is. 

I nod and then slowly, so he has all the time in the world to call me back, leave the room, and then his apartment.


	4. A Carved Man

It's take number seven that, once cut short by Timmy punching the wall next to my head and Luca, who long since has lost all patience with us, and who is now huffing like an agitated horse, I know things are going to blow up in my face. 

It's my own fault. 

I had wanted to speak to Timmy in the morning when his weary eyes had looked at me carefully, but then he hadn't said anything, so I had stayed silent. Then I had wanted to catch him alone at lunch break but didn't have the guts to pull him away from a conversation with Luca. 

We had spent the whole day in nervous, confused tension that I had no idea how to break and which now would be broken for me. One way or another. 

Luca stops us, his anger directed at me more than Timmy, and I deserve it, know I deserve it, but it still fires up my own anger. 

"Too careful!" he shouts, hands in the air to underline his point. "You're drunk and in love and _free_, and you have everything you want just right in your arms! And I can't see nothing like that from you!"

My stomach plummets at the words, how true they ring, and how false. How I am neither drunk nor free but might very well be in love, and Luca must detect the change instantly on my face. His frown deepens, and his hands still. 

"What happened? Between you? What happened?" he demands as if he's surprised by what he can read off our bodies and our glances.

Like two schoolchildren being scolded by their father for playing in the sitting room and breaking an expensive vase after being explicitly told not to play in that very room, Timmy and I shuffle our feet, head bowed, but otherwise, we stay silent. 

Luca's frown changes once again, his eyes dancing between us, and I'm sure he sees exactly what's going on. What I did. 

In a horrible, icy, malicious rage, I wonder if he's now looking at his two subjects with regret. For having played them like puppets, for having pushed them towards a kind of intimacy and love that would transcend the movie, not expecting to succeed so thoroughly. 

"Isn't this what you wanted?" I ask, voice cold, and I regret it instantly, regret it as soon as Timmy draws in a shocked breath, and Luca's eyes widen, but what's done is done, and my pride is too loud to take it back and apologize. 

"Ten minutes," he throws at us, pointing a finger. "Fix it. We're losing the light."

With that, we're dismissed, and I stalk away from them, quickly engulfed by darkness and silence, so far away from the bustling set and the ever-patient crew waiting for us to get it together. 

I lean against a wall, the ancient stone somehow soothing, and I lose the anger, and what's left is only shame at my own words.

"I should probably apologize," Timmy mumbles as soon as he's close enough, his face hidden in shadows, his frame small and hunched over, hands in his pocket. 

"What? No!" It hadn't crossed my mind that he would find a way to blame himself." None of this is your fault. This is all-." I rub my hands over my face, probably ruining the makeup, but I'm well and truly pitying myself, wallowing in shame and regret. 

"This is the single most gratifying and immersive experience I ever had shooting a movie, and I'm fucking it up left and right. I should have left my personal shit at the door, and I didn't, and I'm so fucking sorry for dragging you down with me."

Bile rises in my throat at my own words. I'm cutting myself with them, downplaying what my hand on his knees had felt like, my nose against his crotch, my lips on his lips. How the feeling of his cock in my palm is forever imprinted into the memory of my skin, as much as his eyes, shining with raw desire and directed at me without shame. I am not worthy of that, and he must know that too.

He steps closer, and I can see more of his face, see him bite his lip. "I was pushing you, though." His words, like a confession, touch something inside me, something exhilarating. 

He was?

"Tim." I stop him from turning away with a hand on his arm, willing him to look up to me even though I have no idea what to say to him now that I have his attention. 

His eyes, as always, show everything and nothing about how he feels. 

No words are coming out of my mouth, and I suddenly feel young and inexperienced standing in front of him, feel off-balance and naked, as if Oliver isn't a person I slip inside of, but a part of my own self that has been carved out of me, chiseled off bits of me to reveal him. Oliver, who is telling my body that we love the man in front of us, that we want him, that we even might not be able to live without him. 

"Can we forget it ever happened?" he asks, with kindness in his eyes, and yet I feel the stab in my chest so deeply as if he'd pushed a knife through it.

"Are you giving me an out?" I smile faintly.

"I'm giving us both an out." His gaze does not falter when he meets mine. "Armie, you're married," he says quietly as if to remind me, as if that thought isn't burning a hole in my chest.

"Okay." I hurry to agree with him, dread crawling up my spine. "I'm so sorry for-." I stop again, not quite sure what I'm apologizing for. The words "using you" dance in my head but not because they're true but because that's what my dread stems from. The certainty that this is what he must think I was doing. Another straight guy trying out if another man's body would excite them just as much as a woman's. I don't have the words to tell him, to convince him, that this isn't entirely what happened. And how that makes it so much worse. 

"I still mean it though," I hear myself say, my mouth faster than my mind, my body deciding that it's all out in the open anyway, so why hold back the truth that I'm able to name. "I'm so grateful to have met you and to see the phenomenal actor you are and the amazing human you are. I fell in love with you, Timmy, and if you'd still like to be friends with this fucked up, washed-up actor, man, I'd be so honored to have you in my life."

The words, over the top and spoken like a teenager who'd just been rejected, ring so right that suddenly I'm on edge for his response, cataloging every reaction from him, desperate to hear him say yes, desperate for him to want to stay in my life half as much as I need to stay in his. 

I realize that he, regardless of what happened between us, is a gift to myself and, dangling right in front of me, something I can't even bear thinking about losing. 

He laughs at my self-deprecation, twisting his body in the sudden embarrassment caused by my praise, and he chuckles a "fuck you," and I know we're okay. 

"I'd love to," he says, and more than just seeing his smile, I can hear it in his words, and I pull him in for a quick but tight hug that he meets in kind, his arms linking behind my back. 

Luca eyes us carefully when we arrive back on set but seems cautiously satisfied, sees our composure less tensed, less on edge. 

We're back on our marks, Oliver and Elio ready to take over, and my body sinks into Oliver once again, or better even shrinks back to let him come to life, and my relief ebbs away the second I have Timmy back within reach. 

I realize, between one heartbeat and another, that I had made a grave mistake. 

While I, trying to be the responsible, married adult, had been able to make the decision to say no to him, to the temptation he presented, not just in physical experience but to a part of myself that had lurked inside me all this time, I hadn't counted on Oliver, and on his desire to say yes. And now, with the camera on us, it is my job to let Oliver take over and let him get what he wants, and both he and I know that we're one and the same, he only a vessel for my own desire, my own needs. 

There's no hesitation this time in either of our performances. Aware of the timer ticking down on how long we can have this and blame it on the role, I let Oliver be and step back, only to be pulled to the forefront the second Timmy's body presses against mine, face looking up, mouth open and trusting, and by now I see him, see Elio flicker through but Timmy right there and solid. I wonder if he knows it, too, if he sees how it's just us after all. 

There's a moment neither of us moves. There's water close by, and the sound of it and our own breathing is the only thing I hear, the crew once again having vanished just where the light ends. My hand touches his throat, a soft and slow touch, and he stretches towards me as I lean down. Our lips find each other, for a long time, a lifetime maybe, just touching, until he presses against me and my other hand finds his face as he falls into my body, a complete surrender that fills up my whole being with something far deeper and far more dangerous than lust. We kiss for a long time. Lost in the moment, that might very well be our last, and I've already decided to take it and take everything he's offering. 

His body curves against mine, pulses, breathes, and he tastes like heaven or like home, his tongue in my mouth and his hands grabbing the waistband of my pants, bringing us together. 

I sneak an arm around his neck as if I can get him closer still and make the barrier between us disappear, our clothes and our skin, as if I can make us one right here and now. 

"Cut," comes a faint word from far away, and reluctantly we let go, not much space between us, as if we both our bodies are not ready for the separation.

He blinks up at me, his eyes clouding over, and something becomes strikingly clear.

When Tim had come that night, arching against me in surprise, it had pushed Elio and Oliver out of the room. Now, I realize that even with my attempt at pretending otherwise, they'd never come back in.


	5. Tasting Temptation

**Part II**

I had seen through their game two hours into it, when Nick would place the food instead of in front of him, close to my plate and then not touch it but get up and get another plate from Armie who was at the grill and Tyler would steal something from that plate just to moan at every bite. I glare at all of them when they keep pushing the plate towards me. 

They were trying to feed me.

Armie had told me he was worried more than once in the last few weeks, had looked with concern more often than that at me whenever I stretched, and my shirt would ride up to reveal some skin or the sharp edges of my hip bones. 

And now he had roped his friends into it.

“Dude, it’s getting cold!” Nick scolds me in mock exasperation, and I only chuckle and shake my head. He hands me a beer, and I shouldn’t accept that either but it’s a Friday and I convince myself that I have enough time to get back on track for the last week of shooting just to see the happy smile on Nick’s face and a silent nod from Armie who’s a few feet away but who’s eyes I can feel the second they land on me.

I feel myself react to that gaze, mold under his eyes and then stretch, expand, as if his eyes are sunlight, and I’m a mere flower growing under it. I’m long over being embarrassed by that. Having spent months trying to come to terms with my own feelings, for him and about myself, about Luca and Crema and Elio and Oliver - I’m now well past all of it. Can almost look at him when he’s not aware without the pang in my chest. It’s when he’s looking back that I falter. 

When his gaze changes into a stare, I can see the memories flaring up between us like a silhouette or a hologram, connecting us to a time that was but putting a barrier between us now. 

“Ouch, fuck, you asshole!” Nick groans and laughs and then rubs his head, and I see Tyler walk away and snicker, balancing his beer bottle and a cigar in one hand while playing on his phone on the other. “Stop hitting me, you ass!” Nick flops down next to me, huffing, and then producing another plate of roasted mushrooms filled with cream cheese. 

“Stole these for us,” he tells me, not without pride and piles half of them on my plate. 

“Fuck you,” I laugh and dig in, not missing the proud look passing between Nick and Armie. 

The night drags on in the slowest, calmest way, and I feel myself sink into the comfortable rhythm of it, in between the talk among friends who’d known each other for years, listening intently but not pushed to participate. 

I drink, and I eat more than I should, and I know I will regret it the next day, but just one more week seems not so bad anymore, and then I can go back to eating normally.

And then I would have to leave LA and my temporary home that consists of a guest room and a bathroom in this house that would have me wake up almost every day to a breakfast table of restricted food but full of life and warmth and happiness. And Armie. Better to give that up soon, or I would be too used to it to take my leave gracefully. I’m already in too deep with his friends who welcome me with open arms even though I’m much younger than them and don’t know any of the old stories. 

After dinner, we’re sitting around a fire, our chairs pushed together, a blunt and alcohol making the rounds, and a pleasant numbness spreads inside me. 

I’m nestled between Armie and Tyler and every now, and then Armie leans over to hand Tyler or me the blunt, and he would put a hand on my knee, a warm presence that instantly spreads through my whole body the same way the whiskey spreads it’s warmth when it goes down my throat. 

Other times, a hand lands on my shoulder to emphasize a point, and I’m torn thinking he might not notice he’s doing it and that he does notice and uses the disguise of being slightly drunk and slightly stoned to do something that used to come so naturally to our interactions but had been forbidden ever since he’d had his hands on my cock and since I kissed him in front of the camera and forgot how to act. 

I don’t know how to feel about it. 

I want him far away from me not to be reminded of what I can’t have, and I want him close, want him to keep doing it if this is all I’d ever get.

We haven’t touched since that kiss, since our last take. Not like that anyway. We both have made good on our promise to be friends and friends only, and in that process, we’d become the best of friends, close but not too close, honest and intimate without having anything to be ashamed of. 

I know I won’t be able to keep it up. Not forever. Not if he keeps on touching my knee, squeezing it and leaning over so I can smell him, his scent settling on my tongue as if I licked it. 

“I swear I still have it!” Armie shouts, mock exasperation, as Tyler swears he’s sure he doesn’t. 

I missed the part of the conversation where they talked about the object at hand, but I’m quickly pulled into the banter of two friends sure the other is wrong. 

“I’m gonna get it,” Armie sing songs and is up and already halfway into the house. “And you gonna regret doubting me!”

Nick and I share a glance, his eyes clearly signaling that this isn’t the first time they’ve gotten into a fight over this. 

I find myself standing up too, not sure why but suddenly feeling antsy with the need to move, so I follow Armie into the house.

“Found it!” I hear him shout from the bedroom, gleefully, and I can’t help but laugh myself when I find him and see his overexcited face, and I stumble into the room, trying to get a good look at the thing, my hand brushing his and it somehow feels like something different. As if our skin was vibrating in different frequencies and is now syncing up the second we connected. 

I pull my hand back and brush it off on my pants to get the ghost of the touch off of it. 

“Oh, you wanna see?” he brushes his shoulder against mine, leaning into me, and his warmth engulfs me immediately, as he turns away so I can’t see. 

I step back, suddenly overwhelmed with his proximity, lightheaded almost, the onslaught of feelings too much all at once. 

“What the fuck is it?”

“A fertility goddess Tyler got me years ago. It’s the craziest, ugliest thing I’ve ever seen, and I love it!” he gleams, and I get lost for a second in the happiness in his eyes. 

“So, show me!” 

“No, you can’t see,” Armie laughs and hides his hand further away from me. “You can see when I show the others.”

“What? No, show me!” I reach out, giggling, around his body as he turns further, and just as I had known he would, he uses his free hand to grab my side and tickle me.

I yelp, squirming away, but now that it has started, Armie’s not going to stop anytime soon. I hear the object fall to the ground and see Armie’s face full of dangerous joy, the face of a man who knows how to torture me and finds so much satisfaction in it that, even though I am the subject of that torture, I’m the last person to deny him this. 

Then both his hands are on me, and as much as I wish to enjoy his hands touching my body, the tickling makes me bark out a laugh, and I’m trying instinctively to get away.

The tickling edges on pain, and I wheeze and kick him, but he’s stronger, even tipsy, and spins me around to have more access. I call for help, half laughing, my own laughter echoing back to me and mixing with his until I get him off balance. He hits the table with his shin, shouting indignantly, and I can’t help but laugh and pounce on him again, not ready to let his fingers on my skin go, and soon enough, he has me trapped against a wall and tears stream down my cheeks from laughter. 

“Stop, stop, stop,” I whisper, having lost my breath completely, my chest burning from the exhaustion, and the words come out of my mouth without my permission, not wanting him to stop any of it. 

When he does though, he stills without moving away, breathing heavily, and I barely have time to look up at his face, only get a glimpse of his eyes, before he makes a sound, deep in his chest, and then his mouth is on mine. 

I freeze for the second it takes me to adjust to what’s happening, and then I echo his sounds, now recognizing it for what it is, the same longing rippling through me, my voice echoing his voice, my body recognizing his as part of itself, having been in such close proximity but never allowed to touch.

He breaks the kiss, hovering over me, and his eyes are closed, brows knit together as if he’s fighting something inside himself. 

“Sorry, I don’t know what-.” 

His breath puffs against my lips, and his tongue is wet where it’s caressing his lower lip, and I _want_ him.

“Armie, please kiss me,” I beg breathlessly, fingers pulling at him. 

A heartbeat later and we’re completely wrapped up in each other, entangled, my back against the wall, legs wrapped around his hips, loving how he can hold me up like this, and I plunge at his mouth with no hesitation, licking the taste out of his mouth and off his lips until we’re creating an entirely new taste, equal parts either of us. 

We’re loud. It’s a thought that doesn’t pierce my consciousness fully, but we’re groaning and gasping, the sound of our lips and the rustle of our clothes rubbing fill the room and have no problem to travel out of the open bedroom door. 

His body is all around mine, his arms like an extension of the wall and his hands cradling my head, shielding it from the hard surface as he presses my head back to get access to my neck, pressing kisses into my skin. 

This is my heaven, my home, I realize. The thought crushes me, how much I had tried to get over him and to mold my love into a safe one, training myself to be happy in his life, all those attempts crumble under his hands in a second. 

And now I realize that trying to get there had been trying to walk away from parts of myself. 

This, here, is who we are, the sum of us. I wonder under the haze of his desperate kisses if he’d known all along. 

I get him to stop, just for a second, tilt his head up to mine so our eyes can meet, so I can see him see me, and when he does look up, and our eyes do meet, I gasp at what his gaze does to me, stripped bare enough so our souls can touch through our bodies and I know that he knows. All of it. 

Eyes open, I lean forward as slowly as I can force myself to, giving him all the time to stop us, but he adjusts his grip on me and waits, his breath hitting my lips, his eyes on my face like a caress, until my lips touch his, the sweetest, softest touch and then we kiss like we haven’t before, slow and deep and my heart breaks all the way open, greeting him at the threshold. 

Eventually, we stop. The noises of Tyler and Nick venturing through the house startling us into entangling ourselves from each other in utter, shocked silence.

There are no words between us. As if what we’ve been saying with our bodies had been loud enough to make any words unnecessary. His eyes drill into me as we straighten our clothes like he’s looking for an answer he already knows but is too scared to admit. 

My hands don’t seem to stand still when we walk back, the adrenaline not leaving my body fast enough, so the small movements are trying to burn it off before it turns into a panic, before my thoughts get hold of it, and bend and twist it, so I suddenly know that that moment hasn’t changed anything, that he’s still married, and that I still have to leave this house empty-handed. 

Nick finds me by myself at the fire-pit when it’s almost burned down, and darkness surrounds me, the others in the living room, sipping whiskey and talking in low voices.

He hands me a glass of it and waits until the sound of our glasses clinking has tapered off, and I can hear Armie’s deep rich voice again from behind me. 

“I saw you,” Nick says without preamble. 

I freeze, glass hovering mid-air. 

He rubs his neck nervously, which in turn makes me nervous. 

“You know I- uhm,” he takes a deep breath as if he doesn’t know what he wants to say. “I’ve been friends with Armie longer than I can remember, and I always wondered if he’d ever get there.”

My head snaps up, looking at Nick, finding his face serious. 

“Look, I’m not saying this is all a great idea, or this isn’t gonna get messy, but for what it’s worth, I’m glad it’s you.”


	6. Out In The Open

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this has been a long time coming so I apologize for the delay! I can't promise when the next installment will come but this story is very dear to my heart and I don't want to rush it either. Thank you everyone for sticking with it!

The morning is stillness. My head hurts less than I had anticipated, but my stomach rumbles, unhappy with last night's food way more than with the alcohol. 

It's not even morning, but already noon, I realize when I look at my phone, and reluctantly I get up and push the curtains aside to let the light in. 

I'm hungry, and I need some water, so I wander into the kitchen, footsteps silent on the hardwood floor, and it seems as if I'm the only one awake, so I make sure to be quiet. 

I make myself coffee after I down a full glass of water and two slices of plain toast, and I eat it standing at the kitchen counter, lost in thought and in memories of last night. The images flutter through my head, the sounds of them too, and when I close my eyes, I can still feel Armie's lips on mine, taste his hunger that matched mine. 

"Good morning." Armie's voice startles me, and I look up to find him barefoot and in shorts and a shirt with wet hair entering the kitchen. 

"Morning."

We hadn't talked since yesterday, since that kiss that was way more than just a kiss, and we both know it. 

Armie gets himself a coffee and comes to sit on the barstool across from me, the kitchen island separating us. Still, all I can think of are his hands on me and how desperate we'd been, and I can't think about anything else than wanting to do that again, and I think he can see it on my face when he looks up. 

"Niki knows," I tell him, my voice low. To distract him and myself and to not have more secrets than necessary between us.

Armie freezes, his eyes focused on the cup in his hand widening, and he doesn't look up as if his body is playing catch up with the knowledge. 

"He's seen us."

"Was he- angry? What did he say to you?" He's trying to hide it, but I can hear the nerves in his voice and the fear someone he loved and called his friend most of his life might now feel different about him. 

"He's not angry. He said he'd been waiting for something like this to happen. And he- he said he's glad it's me."

Armie huffs, but there's relief there on his face. "Figures that he knew before I was even sure."

I hesitate, leaning against the counter behind me and face him over the edge of my mug. 

"Are you? Sure, I mean?"

His eyes meet mine, and then he nods. "I- suspected. For a while, I mean. Pushed it away the rest of the time. Spent the last months thinking about basically nothing else. I am not ready to put like, a label on it or anything but-. Yes, I'm sure." 

There's a hint of a smile on his face that makes my heart warm. I know that smile. The kind that people wear who figure something out about themselves and are ready to admit it, even if only to themselves.

"What- now?" I release a breath through my pursed lips. My hands are shaking. I remember asking him that before and what had happened after. And how we'd been fools thinking we could just ignore it. 

"I don't know." He says the words with a sigh, and as if he can read my thoughts, his tone apologetic, but his eyes are honest, and I fear that he does know. "Tim, I'm married," he quotes the very same words back to me I had said to him in Crema. 

"I'm in love with you," I tell him, at one p.m. in his kitchen while his wife and children are out of the house and two of his best friends are sleeping somewhere in the guestrooms, and he looks at me as if he hadn't known when really, not for a day, I hadn't been able to hide it. 

"Timmy."

He looks so pained, I almost want to take it back. I take a deep breath and take my eyes off him. "It doesn't matter, though."

"Why are you saying that?"

I shrug helplessly, wondering where the tears are coming from that burn in my eyes but do not spill. 

"Timmy, it really fucking matters to me."

I meet his eyes then, and I believe him, the way he's looking at me as if I'm putting myself down and he isn't having it. 

"It doesn't change anything, then," I say, and he recoils as if I'd slapped him. 

There's no reply this time, and it's clear that I am right and that he knows it or at least is working up to understanding that I am. 

Nick appears in the hallway just minutes after, and I'm relieved to see him and to have him disturb the heavy silence sitting between Armie and me. 

"Morning!" he groans, but it sounds somehow more cheerful than his scrunched up face — his telltale sign of a massive headache — would let on. He walks into the kitchen, patting Armie on his shoulder in some silent assurance, and I watch Armie relax some of the tension around his jaw.

"I better get going," I say to the room and, not waiting for a reply, slip out of the kitchen, walking back to my room to start packing. 

I had started the day before but then abandoned it, the task of packing up my life and leaving here sitting wrong in my stomach. But an Uber is coming in an hour, and I can't possibly delay this any longer. I had overstayed my welcome precisely a day, and I wonder what would have happened if I had left yesterday. If we hadn't invited Tyler and Nick to come over for a last farewell. 

With every piece of clothing stuffed into a bag, I vow to myself not to fuck this up, not to let this friendship slip away from me. He knows now. All my cards are on the table, and he didn't kick me out the door, nor did he declare his love for me in return. Nothing has changed. We can be friends and nothing else, and all I need to do is keep doing what I had done ever since I'd arrived back from Crema, and we could pretend yesterday and today never happened.

When I'm almost done, there's a knock on the door, and Armie enters quietly, leaning back against it, his hands in his pockets.

"Niki and you are okay?" I ask him, stopping for a moment to look up at him.

He nods, a smile flashing over his face that is gone seconds after it appeared. "Are we?"

And that look on his face, all longing, all love and affection and heartbreak, makes me want to scream at him and hit him because it crumbles my resolve in tiny little pieces, smaller than dust. I know, _know_, he wants me and he loves me and if he would just say the words I would drop to my knees even with his friends outside, two doors down from his bedroom he shares with his wife, would drop to my knees and let him have of me whatever he wanted. 

As much as he likes to talk about how I carry my emotions on my sleeve, I wonder if someone ever told him that he can't hide anything that is going on inside his heart.

"Of course," I tell him, and I smile and it's not a lie. We are okay. I just don't know what else we are. 

Armie clears his throat as the doorbell chimes. "Your car?"

I nod, zipping up my backpack. 

"You're doing three days of location shoot, right? You could come back after? Stay the last days here?"

I shake my head, not offering an explanation because he knows why and there's no point discussing it.

"I could have driven you, you know?" he tries again. 

"Yeah, but you have two very hungover friends who need to be delivered to their homes first," I laugh, easing some of the tension. 

I bring my stuff to the front door, walking back to the room where Armie still lingers to get the last bag.

"Can we say goodbye here?" he asks, somehow nervous. 

Here, as in the privacy of this room, where no one can see us.

"Of course." 

I cross the distance to him and open my arms for a hug, to be engulfed by him only moments later, pulled against his body, and I sigh deeply, wrapping my arms around his neck. 

"It was really fucking good to have you here," Armie says, not letting go just yet. His words are muffled against my hair and I can feel them vibrating against my chest too.

"Thank you for having me."

I'm the one breaking the hug eventually, stepping back and pushing my curls out of my face, trying to look up at him, finding his gaze as uncertain as I feel.

I want to laugh. At my own naivete, thinking that nothing had changed. Of course, things had changed. Everything had. Not just because of my admission earlier, but also because of the kiss last night. The kiss had pulled something out of Crema that should have stayed there, hidden, buried in the past. 

Now it's here, dragged into the daylight and the present, and nothing and no one will be able to put it back. 

I step forward and, cupping his cheek with one hand, I press a kiss to his lips. Not chaste, not passionate, but solid and true, because this is who we are now, who we maybe always have been. Friends, yes, but more as well.

We share a smile as I leave, and Armie helps to carry my bags to the car. I hug Nick and tell them to say goodbye to Tyler for me, and then I'm sitting in the backseat of the car, my life in the trunk, and forever changed.


	7. Inevitable

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I never write and post on the same day so either this is really good or really bad, nothing in between :D

Armie grows silent over the course of the day. He’d arrived in New York in the morning and what had started with laughter and stories and competing over who had the crazier one to tell is now silent smiles and deep, contented sighs. What was breathless laughter is now companionable silence.

And stolen glances. 

The day had flown by, the photoshoot going off without a hitch, as had the dinner after. We had walked home, taking shortcuts through the neighborhood, passing through hidden alleyways where no one would see us or, if they did, wouldn’t recognize either of us.

As the sun finally goes down and I’m coming back from the bathroom, a long narrow room in the tiny apartment I share with a friend, I find him sitting on my bedroom floor looking out of a window where I have a stunning sliver of a view, just from that corner, the skyline dipped in golden sunlight. I stop in the doorway and watch him for a moment, his profile serious, almost sad, his eyes, though pointed towards the view, not seeing anything, I’m sure. 

He’s probably going to leave soon, head to his hotel room because there’s no sofa I can offer, and my roommate’s bed, although empty, doesn’t fit him. 

Right now, I wish nothing more than to climb into his lap, and take his face into my hands and kiss him, not to initiate anything but for the kiss itself, a gesture of love transcending anything our bodies could do together. 

I miss him. And the things we had never done together. 

“Why are you standing there?” his voice startles me, and then he shuffles to the side where his back is leaning against my bed to make room for me to sit next to him. 

I wish we’d spoken about the kiss, and about what happened after, a few months back. But he’d never mentioned anything about it since, and I had followed his lead. 

I ask myself so often what can be said. About the way he looks at me, not hiding anything. About the way I seek out his presence as if I’m tied to him. I suspect his silence about the matter is not to pretend it away but to not let it escalate more than it already has. To not give it more heat even though it’s already fully aflame. 

And every day, I find myself torn about whether or not to keep up the charade. 

He looks up at me from his spot on the floor, concern showing on his face, and I know there will never be a day I’ll be over him. Even though I may not ever have him. 

“Are you okay?” he asks.

I nod and cross the distance between us, but instead of sitting beside him, I do what I had imagined, and I straddle his thighs until he shifts so I can sit on top of him, my knees circling his hips, chest towards him, both his hands hovering midair, uncertain where to hold onto me. 

I can’t tell why I’m doing it, what makes me bold enough to offer myself to him like this, after months of carefully performed friendship. 

“Timmy,” he breathes, and I hear everything in that word. Every fiber of his love for me, every bit of fear and lust and shame and excitement and regret. All of it.

“I just wanna kiss you,” I confess, reaching for his hands to play with them, interlacing our fingers. I had never stopped wanting to kiss him, and yet it’s an admission that surprises even me.

I’m calm like this, on top of him, even though I have no right to be. But his eyes are on me as if the two of us are the only things that matter in this world, and I feel as if no one could ever love him like I do, so it is my right to do what we’re doing. There are days when I realize it isn’t true, and when my guilt drops poison into my stomach and into my lungs, but it’s not today.

“I’d like that,” Armie says, and the honesty in his voice is defeating. 

He doesn’t move, so I do, closing the distance slowly until I meet his lips, two soft pillows made to fit mine. 

His deep intake of breath matches mine, a gulp of air like drinking water after almost having died in the desert. The kiss stays soft and unhurried, our lips sliding together in an age-old rhythm, my tongue slipping into his mouth as soon as I’m granted entrance. 

Armie holds my face in both hands as we kiss, but he lets himself be kissed, doesn’t push or take control. It’s as if he’s waiting for me, trusting me, listening to what I do and letting himself be led.

I want to ask him, as I remove his shirt by pulling it over his head, whether he had ever been with a man. Had he explored this? In his youth, maybe? Or in the last years? Or am I the only one who is allowed far enough so that my hand can travel over his bare chest?

My shirt comes off too, yet we don’t stop kissing, and I take my time to learn every inch of his mouth, of his tongue, his lips. His hands pick up a lazy rhythm, one caressing my lower back, the other playing with the hair at the nape of my neck. 

He’s hard, as am I, but we don’t do anything about it. My hips are rocking softly against his, and for now, it is enough, just an afterthought, a present tingle adding to the music our lips are making. 

I let my mouth travel over his face, pressing tiny kisses along his jaw, his cheekbones, and his forehead, then going lower, behind his ear and down his neck. His beard is rubbing against my lips, soon tender to the touch and no doubt red and swollen, but I continue, and I let my tongue follow until I find the dip in his throat.

Armie moans underneath me.

I look up to find his gaze, and warmth spreads through me when I catch him looking at me, hunger and love in his eyes.

_‘Do you know?’_ I want to ask. _‘Do you know how much you love me?’_ But I don’t dare ask the question, don’t dare say anything that might disturb this moment. 

I stand up then and reach for him, his hand accepting mine without any hesitation. He gets up as well and lets me open his jeans, undoing the button and then pulling down the fly, pushing the pants down and then his underwear, and he steps out of both, his eyes burning against my skin. 

I take off the rest of my own clothes, and we stop a moment when we’re both naked, sharing hesitant smiles, and then I guide him onto the bed until he’s spread out in front of me. 

_‘I’m going to sleep with you’_, I think, shivering with arousal, but don’t say that either. 

I lie on top of him, his cock hard against mine, but I don’t pay it much attention. We both gasp as we touch each other for the first time like this, both fully naked, two bodies rocking against each other lazily.

I seek out his mouth for another kiss, and he guides my face, hungry now for my lips. I break the kiss anyway to map out all the spots with my mouth that I had missed before. My hands join that journey, and I touch every inch of him, watching how goosebumps follow every line my fingertips and my tongue make. 

“Timmy,” he moans when I suck the skin of the inside of his thigh between my teeth, and desperation swings in that word. 

I crawl back up to him until we’re flushed against each other, his cock or mine exuding precome, which eases the way, and he reaches for me, his broad hands reaching lower this time, engulfing the globes of my ass just to pull me against him.

My mouth finds his again, and we’re losing the lazy, slow pace. 

My hips are setting a faster rhythm, aided by his hands, and I know I can come like this, my cock rubbing against his stomach and his cock, not even need to sneak a hand between us. 

It seems as if he’s set on doing the same. He spreads his legs, which brings me even closer, and our kiss turns into gasps, into groans. 

The beginning of an orgasm builds in my cock, my balls drawing tight. I look down at Armie, our faces now inches apart, and we’re not kissing anymore, just looking into each other’s eyes, rocking and grinding together, and I watch his eyelids flutter closed.

“Armie,” I say his name, half to make sure I believe it is him who’s underneath me, who let us go this far, who I’m sleeping with, who I’m making love to. 

I see the effect his name has on him, the way I moan it, so I do it again and again until I’m too close to think anything at all. 

I watch him come, watch his face twist and feel him shoot his load between our bodies, and I desperately hold out not to miss a single second until his eyes find mine again, blissed out and impossibly dark, and I’m coming too, chanting his name. 

I sink against his chest after, as we come down and find our breaths again. He tightens his arms around me, hugging me close, and I know we have to move soon and clean up, but right now, I feel like nothing in the world could make me move.

“Stay tonight?” I ask him when he finally does get up and brings a wet washcloth, still naked, stopping to look at me lying on the bed. 

There’s something vulnerable in being naked afterward, more so than during. Yet I don’t cover myself up but wait for his answer. 

He doesn’t reply with words, but he cleans me up and puts the cloth on the bedside table, and then he crawls back into bed, pulling me close and pressing a lingering kiss to my lips. 

I can almost hear his thoughts running, so I cradle his face in my hand and make him look at me. 

He smiles, and I know I have him with me again, at least for tonight.


End file.
